Sirantha Jax isn’t known for diplomatic finesse. As a “Jumper” who navigates ships through grimspace, she’s used to kicking ass first and taking names later—much later. Not exactly the obvious choice to sell the Conglomerate to the Ithtorians, a people whose opinions of humans are as hard as their exoskeletons.

And Ithiss-Tor council meetings aren’t the only place where Ambassador Jax needs to maneuver carefully. Her lover, March, is frozen in permanent “kill” mode, and his hair-trigger threatens to sabotage the talks—not to mention their relationship.

But Jax won’t give up on the man or the mission. With the Outskirts beleaguered by raiders, pirates, and the flesh-eating Morgut, an alliance with Ithiss-Tor may be humanity’s only hope.

Which has Jax wondering why a notorious troublemaker like her was given the job.

Doubleblind departs a bit from the tone of the first two books, but it is nonetheless entertaining and fast paced. This book follows Jax and crew’s shenanigans on Ithiss-Tor as they try to create some sort of alliance with the natives.

I’ve seen some negative reviews of this book because Jax is more subdued than she is normally, but to be honest, I thought it was an interesting change for her. She’s gone through a lot of really rough stuff recently, and now she’s trying to do something completely out of her comfort zone with very little support (ambassador to an alien race that’s fairly hostile towards humans). I think it’s reasonable that she be more cautious. Especially when they either secure the alliance with Ithiss-Tor or risk everyone getting eaten by the Morgut.

Especially with March having completely lost his mind.

March’s story was interesting; I liked that he was still there and still helping Jax even though he’s completely lost and shut down after the battle and his PTSD is in full swing. That added a good conflict between him and Jax that was really serious, and they had to both do a lot of soul searching to get through it.

The rest of the gang is still going strong: Vel (whom I love), Dina, Hit, Jael…we don’t get a ton of development from the last three (except for you-know-what-with-you-know-who for those of you who have read this) because we’re much more concerned with Jax and March and the alliance, though we do get some nice friendship development between Vel and Jax. Plus we get to learn more about the Syndicate (DUN DUN DUNNNNNN).

Ok, I just read some mildly disturbing spoilers for the last two books of this series, so I’m really sadly planning on bowing out somewhere in the middle of book 5. Maybe I just won’t read anymore. It really upsets me because the first three books were so good and Anne Aguirre takes one of my favorite parts of the second and third book (Jax’s friendship with Vel) and twists it up into something weird later on. NOT OK AGUIRRE.

Anyway, I definitely recommend the first book Grimspace, especially if you like sci-fi/space opera. It ends conclusively and can be read as a stand alone. Now that I know spoilers I’m not sure I can recommend the rest. Sigh. Oh well. Doubleblind was entertaining.

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I’ve read the first three books and loved them all – what a shame you’ve encountered spoilers for the rest of the series. I haven’t yet caught up with the rest of them, yet… Thank you for a thorough, considered review:)